, however, recommend this rigour to plain women in general, in
the hope of securing the glory of two suicides apiece. I believe that
there are few men who, in the course of their observations on life, may
not have perceived that it is not the greatest female beauty who forms
the longest and the strongest passions.

"But, apropos of Pope.--Voltaire tells us that the Marechal Luxembourg
(who had precisely Pope's figure) was not only somewhat too amatory for
a great man, but fortunate in his attachments. La Valiere, the passion
of Louis XIV. had an unsightly defect. The Princess of Eboli, the
mistress of Philip the Second of Spain, and Maugiron, the minion of
Henry the Third of France, had each of them lost an eye; and the famous
Latin epigram was written upon them, which has, I believe, been either
translated or imitated by Goldsmith:

"'Lumine Acon dextro, capta est Leonilla sinistro,
Et potis est forma vincere uterque Deos:
Blande puer, lumen quod habes concede sorori,
Sic tu caecus Amor, sic erit illa Venus.'

"Wilkes, with his ugliness, used to say that 'he was but a quarter of an
hour behind the handsomest man in England;' and this vaunt of his is
said not to have been disproved by circumstances. Swift, when neither
young, nor handsome, nor rich, nor even amiable, inspired the two most
extraordinary passions upon record, Vanessa's and Stella's.

"'Vanessa, aged scarce a score.
Sighs for a gown of _forty-four_.'

He requited them bitterly; for he seems to have broken the heart of the
one, and worn out that of the other; and he had his reward, for he died
a solitary idiot in the hands of servants.

"For my own part, I am of the opinion of Pausanias, that success in love
depends upon Fortune. 'They particularly renounce Celestial Venus, into
whose temple, &c. &c. &c. I remember, too, to have seen a building in
AEgina in which there is a statue of Fortune, holding a horn of Amalthea;
and near here there is a winged Love. The meaning of this is, that the
success of men in love affairs depends more on the assistance of Fortune
than the charms of beauty. I am persuaded, too, with Pindar (to whose
opinion I submit in other particulars), that Fortune is one of the
Fates, and that in a certain respect she is more powerful than her
sisters.'--See Pausanias, Achaics, book vii. chap. 26 page 246.
'Taylor's Translation.'

"Grimm has a remark of the same kind on the different destinies of the
yo